Our friend, Laura, was getting married in Washington, DC, so we decided to make a weekend of it and abandon our kids for two nights and three days. Nelson and Stana came down to watch them, while we enjoyed a weekend sans children. The funny thing was that even though the kids weren't with us physically, they were always with us. We kept commenting, "Oh, Alice would love this Spinosaurus exhibit!" or I'd think something like, "Simon would've gotten a kick out of that stuffed chicken." Of course, there were plenty of times that we also said, "Thank goodness the kids aren't with us. Could you imagine them in this restaurant?" The whole weekend felt like a time warp back to the time before kids, and brought back so many memories of our former life as travelers, where wandering around a new city was normal.
Friday afternoon we arrived at our hotel and checked in, then went to the National Geographic museum about a block away where we saw exhibits on the Spinosaurus, food, and the robots that landed on Mars. For supper, we found a Nando's nearby, thus marking the third continent we'd eaten at that Portuguese chicken restaurant (Namibia, Malaysia, USA). The food was awesome.
On Saturday morning, we walked down to the mall and took selfies in front of famous landmarks and visited the Hirshhorn modern art museum.
Saturday afternoon, we went to Laura's fancy wedding. It was beautiful, fun, and well-planned (she has a teaching background and it showed). The meal was delicious and we were lucky to be seated at a table with someone who worked at the CIA, so that was super fun.
On Sunday morning, we went to the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum out by Dulles International Airport. We saw the plane that dropped the Atomic bomb, the Discovery space shuttle, the Concorde, and a Blackbird, among many other aircraft.
But I think my favorite object was the Airphibian: part car, part airplane. As the guide explained, although technically it worked, so many compromises were made in trying to be two things at once, that it was not actually a success. This could be a metaphor for many things, but to me it is symbolic of the trade-offs one makes in trying to maintain a work-family balance. I'm not great at either, but technically it's working.
